Hi,
1. What is the general goal of the feature?
It would be nice if we could choose the syntax of the position data format:
actually : DD°MM'SS.S"
new : DD.DDDDD°
2. What are some example use cases for this feature?
Because it's an easier syntax to copy for external note taking, it's more readable and it's a syntax that we use more often "in my business environment".
It's just an idea for improvement.
Thanks
As a workaround you can use a calculation and show it in a note :
Geopoint is a "Space-separated list of valid latitude (decimal degrees), longitude (decimal degrees), altitude (decimal meters) and accuracy (decimal meters)"
You can use selected-at(${question}, index) function to get any part of the list.
| type | name | label | hint | calculation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| geopoint | point_gps | Localisation | ||
| calculate | coordonnees | concat(selected-at(${point_gps},1),’ ; ‘,selected-at(${point_gps},0)) | ||
| note | affichage_coord | Coordonnées | ${coordonnees} |
As a quick hack, you can see decimal degrees in the navigation view which you can access through the arrow at the top right edge.
To be honest, I prefer decimal degrees and would be open to changing the default.
I think the reason we did not do that initially because we thought DMS would be easier to transcribe.
It's a good idea, I just try it, it works for me.
Thanks Mathieu
Below is my xml example
Test.xml (1.4 KB)
Thanks Florian, Yanokwa for answering.
I had seen when drop-down the questions of the form the format DD.DDDDD° appeared, however it is not very practical, but it helps. Like this format already exists in ODK Collect, it may be easy to show it, that's why i posted. Mathieu brings a solution.
A setting for the desired format in Collect seems an easy enough feature, if we ignore projections (easting and northing vs lat lon).
I know you know this, @Florian_May, but just for the record...
Yes, it is an easy enough feature, but every setting, no matter how small, adds to the maintenance burden. And it's not just code. It's also QA, documentation, translations, screenshots, etc. Not just in Collect, but in Central, pyxform, Enketo, Build, etc. And it's not a one-time effort, it's forever.
I'm very open to figuring out a way to support decimal degrees, but ODK is 14 years old and has a large install base that depend on it because of its deliberate and thoughtful evolution. Nothing is as straightforward or as easy as it looks these days!
Related...
Ah and then there's me assuming things about code bases I'm unfamiliar with (Collect, Enketo, pyxform...)
Interesting to hear, thanks for the insight!
Let me revise my comment: that tip of the maintenance iceberg looks deceptively small.
See also ODK Collect: Make Geopoint display format user-configurable DMS or DD, Geopoint recodrs in degree decimal format
This has come up a couple of times in the last month through other channels (@mathieubossaert I just saw you direct someone here). Is the primary use case for someone taking parallel notes?
Given that it has now come up several times with no one expressing love for DMS, I'm now leaning towards changing it as part of improving media question summaries.
If that would cause a problem for your needs, please describe how you use the DMS representation!
How about adding a new format-geopoint() function for this purpose? ala our existing format-date(date,format)
Or if we want to avoid always having to add an additional note in the form just to reformat the GPS coords, how about an appearance setting(s) that applies to geopoint question to indicate desired UI display format.
To explain the example of my structure:
When taking coordinates,
I offer two choices,
the phone widget
OR
enter the data manually because we have a Garmin GPSMAP 64S GPS in parallel in case the phone does not pick up well enough, because we need to have 4G to locate ourselves well, the GPS sensor alone of our smartphones is not as precise. When we find ourselves in a rural area, we sometimes use the Garmin GPS to be more precise.
CHOICE
CASE WIDGET GPS
CASE MANUEL ENTRY
The simplest manual input is decimal.
And this is the default configuration of our tools to display WGS84.
The solution proposed by Mathieu solved this problem, I have the dual display.
And I think it's now the more common way to read or input coordinates in most common GPS devices or GIS tools.
People con note their coordinates if they want on a paper and use it later out of odk.
